Eternal Child
by SupernaturalAngel
Summary: Created and abandoned by Godric, Henry is thirteen when he wakes, buried in the earth with a lust for blood. This is a two part short from his POV, of his six-hundred year childhood. Spin off of my other story, Aerial.
1. Part I: Bite

**Eternal Child**

**Part I: **_Bite_

"_It was then that Hook bit him._

_Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest._"

~Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

* * *

Everyone always says that they want to be a child forever. They're lying. They don't understand, what it means. They don't understand what they say, these humans. They look at me, whenever I allow them, and they see this thin little blonde boy. Thirteen, maybe twelve. They smile, at my wispy hair, at my eyelashes, which are thick. Only I can feel my fangs, my abominations, hidden behind my grin, pressing against the insides of my lips.

They smile at the child kindly, their fingertips itch to weave themselves through my hair. They have no trouble looking me in the eye. I speak to them in my honey voice and they walk toward me, they sit, or they kneel, and poise their necks, and they let me drink. The easiest are the women, in their thirties or later, the ones that have children or want them. Their pulses quicken when they see me. They want to clothe me and feed me, to take me from the shadows and make me their pet.

They repulse me.

They are the ones that say they want to be a child forever. That's what they say.

I haven't been one in many years, in centuries. My shell is misleading. The divine irony is that the moment that froze my body in childhood, my draining, my making, was the first true injustice, the first unfairness of it all. The moment I woke, hunger, pulsing through my body like nothing I had imagined, buried in the earth, alone amongst the thick night of the most terrible forest, that was the moment I left childhood behind forever. And the moment in which, I was trapped in it for eternity.

A man and a woman found me, on the road. I could see it in their eyes, the pity. I bled them dry before I knew what I was doing, and the ache for blood in my body dulled. I ran, I ran away, from the blood. It was sticky, all over me. I must have looked a nightmare. I felt my fangs with my fingers, they were so sharp they went through my thumb before I realized I could feel the sting. I pulled it out of my mouth to see it heal. I felt the flesh knitting back together, the little blood vessels reattaching. I ran harder, I ran as far as I could, until I felt the sleep creeping, drowning me, and my instinct said _dig_, so I did.

I sleep in the ground. In the earth, with the rotting leaves and the tree roots. My dirtiness, it's the thing that arouses their pity, the worst. They imagine all sorts of situations, all sorts of injustices I must have endured to get to the state. They imagine all the possibilities except one. The truth.

Only the children see me, and they know no pity. I only see jealousy, envy, curiosity. They can sense it, that I am not like them. I am different. But they know not how. They imagine that I am orphaned perhaps, alone, free to play in all the mud and dirt I wish, to climb trees without being called for supper. Little do they know that they are my supper.

I choose them well. The scream-y ones, they are annoyance in the purest form. Afraid of monsters, those sorts, I don't go near. The ones I like, the ones that like me, they are the runts. They are the quiet ones, the ones that hang in the back of groups. They are the ones who sense the madness of children, their cruelty, and they hang back and wait for it all to be over. They know the unfairness of it all.

I don't need to use my honey voice for them. Not the ones_ I_ choose. They understand. I tell them I am hungry. Girls are the best. They have not turned yet into miserably emotional, pitying women, and they understand my predicament. I tell them that I need them, I tell them of my hunger, and my buried sleep, and they tilt their necks, smooth and unblemished, to the side. Before I bite I like to touch their arteries, I like to feel their heartbeat, feeding blood to their doll-like little faces. My touch is so soft, they are barely afraid. It's cold against their skin, their breath almost hitches in their throats, I can feel it. I touch my lips to them, I feel the beat there, before I even open my mouth. I lick them, anticipating their taste, which is much sweeter that any other. My fangs sink slow. They are so still. They anticipate pain, which doesn't come. I do not hurt them. Adrenaline makes the blood sweeter, yes, but I cannot stand the pulsing of their hearts if they are afraid, beating in their ribs as if it might leap out.

I don't drain them, for the most part. Only when I am famished. I bite the tip of my index finger, I blot it onto the fang-marks before I lick them dry and they begin to heal as I pull away. I thank them, and they ask if I will return. I smile my smile, the scary one, and they take a step back. I shake my head, and I disappear, alone, into the trees that are my home, my universe. I never return. The next morning when the sun rises there is no sign of me, no mark, no scar. If they speak of me, I am a figment of their imaginations.

They tell stories of me to their children, but only when their children are young enough not to remember. They tell them of the boy who touched them first, before all the others, and how much they wished to run with him into the night. For centuries. They are all so utterly similar. I suppose I have quite a distinct taste.

For centuries I have been disappearing into the shadows, running into the trees in the night. Alone, always cradled in the earth between sunrise and sunset, always moving, at night.

I meet my own kind, occasionally. I am an abomination to them, to they who are abominations themselves. They can smell the virgin bloods coursing though my body, the children I've ingested, and they smile, terrible, wicked, knowing smiles. And I go on my way alone. Six hundred years now. Nose in the air, sniffing, looking for the one who made me what I am. Made me and left me, alone for dead in the ground, disgusted by me.

Chasing, ever moving, never seeing, except for trees. Trees and unblemished necks, curving for me. It is all so alike. I cross the ocean to the New World. It is all the same. Hundreds of years, and it matters not when it is or where it is. Always there are trees, forests. Always necks, waiting to feed me, small and smooth.

At some point, I begin to hesitate to sink into the shadows. They begin to tell me of the day, of the sunlight. Of sunrise, something I have not seen in hundreds of years. They grow excited, to tell me about something which they know, and I do not. I tell them of my trap of night, my trap of eternity, alone, in the trees. And they ask if they may come, and I say no.

Until one night, when I do not.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _This is from the POV of an original character, Henry, from my other story, Aerial. So this is pretty much an original piece of fiction, since I'm not using any True Blood/Southern Vampire characters, but he is connected. You don't have to have read my other story to understand this, but of course if you do read it, I will love you extra! I originally planned this as a one-shot, but when I started writing I thought it would be better as a two-part, short story. So there's one more chapter coming! Let me know what you think!_


	2. Part II: Blur

**Eternal Child**

_Part II: Blur_

_

* * *

  
_

"_And then one night came the tragedy. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she sat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and Peter dropped in on the floor._

_He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had all his first teeth."_

~ J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

* * *

And they ask if they may come into the woods with me, and I say no.

Until one night, when I do not.

This one is small, frail. Her hair is red, brilliantly so, even in the moonlight. Her skin is so pale I can read the map of veins written, through her skin. She asks if she may come. A century ago, maybe even a decade, I would have laughed, I would have sank into the shadows, leaving her with desire, wondering for the rest of her life what her future may have been like if the blonde boy she'd met in the night hadn't just been a figment of her imagination.

But this time, I do not laugh. She is earnest, I can tell. She wants to come. She wants to disappear. She poises her neck, and she says _please?_

I watch her, gleaming in the moonlight. I touch her neck, the pulsing artery. Not there. I slide my hand down, to her chest, just above the heart. She lies back, watching me, playing doctor. I tear her shirt with my fangs. I lay my hand on her heart, and just above it, I pierce. The blood flows so quickly there, I have a hard time keeping up. It is all very fast. When there is no more, her heart begins to slow, I lick my lips and I bring my wrist to my mouth, to my own veins, ready to tear into the flesh.

I see her eyes then, eyes following her own blood, dripping down my chin. Her eyes are filled with disgust to the brims, I can read it clearly, and my wrist slowly drops to my side, and I run. I hear her heart ceasing its efforts, before I can escape. I have made a mistake. She is not right.

I run. The way is dark, the trees are a blur beside me, my shirt soaks in warm blood. Blood that smells of purity and new-ness, crispness. I see her chest, open holes where the blood gushes, soaking her nightgown. She saw me from the window. She climbed down the tree to come to me.

For days I run, away from her, from her still heart and her dried blood, her eyes of disgust. I run far, as far as I can before I grow hungry again. I am afraid. The next one… If she asks, can I refuse? Perhaps she is the one? Perhaps the forest is not so lonely with another. Perhaps…

I have never created. I have avoided my kind, as far and wide as I can, as much as I have avoided humans, if not more. But standing there, listening to the slowing heartbeat, ready to feed it blood, it is as if another has taken over my body, showing me what to do.

But her eyes. The look in her eyes burns in my mind. At the line between death and my life she chose death, that was simple, I knew it. Would anyone at that line choose my life? Did I?

I am afraid. I am afraid to feed, I am hungry. There is a house, at the edge of the wood. I can smell it. There are little ones. So hungry.

I want one. I want one for myself. I want a shadow with me, to cross the continents, to sleep in the earth with.

She was not right, I know. But another will be. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow.

I must running. I must keep searching.

* * *

**Author's Note: **_I hope you enjoyed that. It was quite a bit of fun to write. Just a little glimpse into an unusual sort of perspective. A lot of readers from my other story, Aerial, where Henry play's an important part, have wondered if Henry is based on Godric from the books. I actually hadn't read the book that Godric was in, but after the comparisons I read the bit about him, and there are some parallels I guess. Not intentional, however. Henry is more inspired by Peter Pan for me (a darker version). :) What's your take on him? _

_I'm thinking of starting a multi-chapter story about Henry's beginnings, that would basically be a more in depth look at the things he does in this story, and his motivations. What do you think? Does that sound interesting?_


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